1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Blogs Should size be the new battleground in the motherboard market?

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by brumgrunt, 8 Jun 2012.

  1. brumgrunt

    brumgrunt What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    16 Dec 2011
    Posts:
    1,009
    Likes Received:
    27
  2. blinkieleblind

    blinkieleblind Tings and such

    Joined:
    22 Feb 2010
    Posts:
    155
    Likes Received:
    1
    i drool over the prospect of building a monster micro-pc!!

    couldn't agree more :D
     
  3. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

    Joined:
    26 Nov 2010
    Posts:
    3,277
    Likes Received:
    72
    I wish GPU could have a more "squared" shape to match mITX motherboard. Shorter but wider GPU board would allow a GTX680 to fit a case with a really small footprint. This is the actual GPU size that prevents case from being shorter.
     
  4. Somer_Himpson

    Somer_Himpson What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    22 Jan 2010
    Posts:
    1,091
    Likes Received:
    53
    I love my mATX board, even housed in a big case...gives it room to breath!
     
  5. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

    Joined:
    26 Nov 2010
    Posts:
    3,277
    Likes Received:
    72
    To illustrate my idea about GPU size :

    [​IMG]
     
  6. bulldogjeff

    bulldogjeff The modding head is firmly back on.

    Joined:
    2 Mar 2010
    Posts:
    8,403
    Likes Received:
    634
    What I'm finding is that hardware in general is so powerful these days that size is starting to prove irrelevant. My old i7 940 asus P6 combo was more than enough for my needs.

    I've said it in the past but 80% of us one here could quite easily cope with an i5 750 and some thing like a GTX 460 for most of the time.
     
  7. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

    Joined:
    17 Feb 2006
    Posts:
    3,483
    Likes Received:
    103
    Well, as someone who's buidling their own PCs for some 15+ years now I can positively say, that I've tried it all.

    During the last two years I was all about mini ITX and it's quiet nice actually what you can do in that area. However cooling in such tight spaces is not as easily done and the level of noise increases the smaller your case gets.
    Putting a mini ITX board into a µATX-case is counterproductive tho, as you'll get a better µATX-board for less money. So why would you want to buy mini ITX, when you still need a somewhat large case for effective cooling?
    When you use a 200 Watt GPU in addition to a 95 Watt CPU your best option is still ATX or µATX, as you need the larger cases anyways to install enough cooling without being forced to have high RPM fans increasing noise significantly.

    So no, size isn't really the new battleground in the motherboard-market when we're talking about workstation or gaming-rig performance. Trying to get the performance of an ATX or µATX-board on a smaller formfactor is wasted efforts imho aslong as the CPU and GPU don't get smaller (i.e. produce way less heat) without loosing performance.

    Size might be a battleground for HTPC and office-PCs, that don't draw more then 100-200 Watts in total. My Atom/ION-systems for example draw only 30 Watts from the wallplug, and they're still capable of running office and multimedia-tasks without problems.
    If you use the integrated graphics of the new intel or AMD-CPUs then you'll be fine aswell for office and multimedia and have the benefit of a little more power on the CPU-side.

    I'd like to see more all-in-one motherboards, like we've seen from Zotac and ASUS, where the PSU was integrated aswell.
    Give me a mini ITX board with LGA1155 socket, integrated 90W PSU and onboard WiFi, where I can install an upcoming i5-3470T (35W TDP) onto in addition to a PCIe x1 DVB-S card.

    For workstations and gaming-rigs I'm only interested in reasonably priced ATX or µATX-boards with the standard-set of features. My next setup will be a LGA1155 µATX again, as my LianLi Q08-setup is too noisy due to it's cooling-restrictions, allthough I allready use a Corsair H60 for the CPU. An aftermarket-cooler like the Prolimatech MK13 for the GPU won't fit, so the GPU is too loud. It was even worse, when I had the hardware installed into a SUGO SG05.
     
    Last edited: 8 Jun 2012
  8. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

    Joined:
    19 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    1,620
    Likes Received:
    60
    How about ONLY making mini-ITX boards, and then having the bits bolt on and be sold as extras.

    ie

    Z77 Pico ITX board, with a slots for
    1. memory modules - 1, 2, or 4
    2. additional PCI-e lanes
    3. VRM's
    4. Storage/SATA/Raid etc
    5. Thunderbolt, USB
    6. Bios/motherboard control
    7. Power Supply (so that it could be integrated with the mobo for truly tiny builds)

    Think of the cost model, and where they could make savings. 1 board per socket model, then a set of peripherals according to match, instead of 1 board per socket per marketing price point.

    I see this as being a great way that manufacturers can drive/add value to the market. Upgrades would no longer involve full refreshes. The second hand market would not cannibalise the retail market so much, and manufacturing lines could be MUCH simplified, as would the test and QA process.

    Returns would only need to focus on the broken bits, and that would be a specific item

    It's a great idea, and I'm certain it would work. After all, I came up with it :)
     
  9. SchizoFrog

    SchizoFrog What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    5 May 2009
    Posts:
    1,574
    Likes Received:
    8
    You also have to take in to account cooling of such a hot product. Many mITX cases only have a single air intake or maybe 2 smaller fan holes. But the idea is tempting.
     
  10. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

    Joined:
    26 Nov 2010
    Posts:
    3,277
    Likes Received:
    72
    Yup, but unfortunatly it's unlikely to happen ... unless they revise the whole ATX norm :wallbash:.

    My dream would be to have 2 processor sockets on a single motherboard : one for the CPU and one for the GPU, with the memory shared between them. When you look at the GTX670, the power circuitry is compact. A power circuitry like on the Asus deluxe could be used to produce such a board.
     
  11. Hopelessness

    Hopelessness What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    31 Mar 2008
    Posts:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    This sounds like DLC for motherboards :sigh:

    I had an Asus M2N32Sli-Deluxe a few years ago, that had WiFi onboard, and 2 Gigabit ethernets. What has happened to features like that on motherboards!?
     
  12. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

    Joined:
    10 May 2009
    Posts:
    3,984
    Likes Received:
    186
    You have a point. Intel has broight thunderbolt tho it has limited appeal to most outside of a laptop atm. Does AMD still make their own chipsets? Its another area they could push sales in terms of features but what do you add? New ports take time to adopt and develop, PCI lanes arnt saturated, do we need more memory bandwidth? Only thing I can think of is adding a GPU back into the board for hybrid crossfire with their APU's or integrate a low powered arm cpu for basic tasks. Who knows, I'm not paid to think.
     
  13. themassau

    themassau What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    23 Mar 2012
    Posts:
    27
    Likes Received:
    0
    maybe on-board flash memory. the flash would store your ram data when you go in hibernate lets say the size of 16GB or 32 GB for so you OS can also be on it. it would be like a buffer.

    multi-socket motherboards for enthusiast.
    maybe new orientation of the socket for better cooling etc like the BTX standaard but keep de holes at the same space so you can still put in ATX standaard cases.

    12v only mobo's would make the market better. whit an batery on it that would be just large enough to get the ram copied to the integrated flash i told of.
     
  14. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    30 Jul 2010
    Posts:
    1,082
    Likes Received:
    10
    I thought the exact same thing, minus the shared memory. I think the GPU should have its own separate memory source, but still one that is manually defined.

    I feel that all boards should start out as Mini-ITX, but have a new form of expansion. The board would come with everything you need to get a functional system - maybe 2 RAM slots, 4 SATA ports, a couple USB headers, 1 PCI-e 16x slot, audio headers, and any other essentials for the typical system. At the right side and bottom of the board would be a couple gigantic slots where you can attach daughter boards.

    The right-side slot would expand the board to be the width of standard ATX boards. Daughter boards that go here can have varying lengths, being as long as the mini-ITX board itself to as long as a standard ATX board. These daughter boards would contain additional RAM slots, additional pin headers (so if there are 2 USB ports not in use, they could be put here), and features that take advantage of unused south bridge resources.

    As for the slot at the bottom of the motherboard, users can buy daughter boards containing 3 expansion ports (expanding the motherboard to become micro ATX). These daughter boards can also be expanded upon each other, so you can form full ATX as well. These boards can have any variety of slots, whether that be all PCI, PCI-e slots designed specifically for SLi or Crossfire, or even mini-PCIe slots.


    Products like this would put back originality and customization in home-made PCs, and if designed properly, allows anybody to make a computer of any price point.
     
  15. AmEv

    AmEv Meow meow. See yall in 2-ish years!

    Joined:
    6 Apr 2011
    Posts:
    1,173
    Likes Received:
    43
    I've seen non-Dell motherboards that are uATX, with little cards that convert it into ATX.
     
  16. TheDarkSide

    TheDarkSide What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    22 Feb 2011
    Posts:
    74
    Likes Received:
    0
    they still exist! Asus z77 deluxe :)
    but you pay a hefty premium for them.
     
  17. l3v1ck

    l3v1ck Fueling the world, one oil well at a time.

    Joined:
    23 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    12,956
    Likes Received:
    17
    I'd like to see one x16 PCIe slot for a single graphics card, then several open ended x4 slots. Ditch the x1 slots. A x1 card will still fit in a x4 slot.
    My old Asus board had that so you could fit larger cards if you wanted, but they'd just get 4 channels.
    There's every chance SSD's will soon need PCIe as even SATA III will be a bottleneck soon.
     
  18. fata1_666

    fata1_666 ...

    Joined:
    13 May 2010
    Posts:
    108
    Likes Received:
    0
    Ive always had micro -ATX instead of full size atx boards like you say its just no needed and even now im looking at the mini -itx options purely for some space in the case and the fact it has all the features i need. the mini-itx has come along way and should soon be seen as the base for any new build then expand to bigger size if an add on card is required.
     
  19. Tyr

    Tyr Minimodder

    Joined:
    7 Jun 2006
    Posts:
    136
    Likes Received:
    0
    Smaller can be better. My all time favourite build was my wife's ASUS M4A88T-I Deluxe build. I had to add a lot of fins to the MOSFETs and the VRegs as I put in a 125W processor into eh little 95W board. Then Stuck a really big 12cm cooler/fan (almost as big as thr 14x14cm board!) blowing down to keep it all cool. Add in a top end GPU and it is a nice compact quiet gaming rig.

    I just wish ITX boards and cases has a 16x PCI-E and a 1xPCI-E.
     
  20. Picarro

    Picarro What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    9 Jun 2009
    Posts:
    3,331
    Likes Received:
    134
    Give me a mini ITX board with good onboard sound! (Yes, F off Realtek). Then I can just add a short but powerful GPU like the 670 and be done with it.
     
Tags: Add Tags

Share This Page